[wayrad]

As far as farming the work out to China, I see some problems:

1) You're talking about what amounts to a scanning operation on a professional scale, not the normal hobbyist scale. I love my Opticbook, but it's not particularly heavy duty, and the availability of support and parts is notoriously bad. Sending one off to China and expecting it to handle that sort of workload sounds like a recipe for disaster.

2) Were you planning to give the guy a scanner and a Finereader license, have him scan like mad, and then spend the rest of your life proofreading? Remember, scanning is the easiest part.

3) How do you plan to proofread? Get the hard copies back? Wait until he's all done and transfer the Finereader license so you can do it onscreen? Or buy *two* Finereader licenses (it's not particularly cheap)? (edited to add: On further thought (and after coffee), I suppose the best way would be to send raw page images and keep the Finereader for yourself. File sizes would be huge, and you would still be doing about 90% of the work, but you would only need one license.)

4) What happens down the road when you find out he missed a page? (yes, it happens. Quite often). Or cut off an edge by mistake?

5) How is he going to send you the files? Over the Internet? Thousands of books? With the hard copies still in his possession, or not? Or bring them across international borders on a laptop or storage device? I'd suggest checking those copyright laws...you may feel you could defend it if challenged, but would you want to risk the trouble and expense of doing so?